OpenClaw Home Assistant Integration: Smart Home Automation Guide

Home Assistant is the most popular open-source smart home platform, supporting over 2,000 device integrations. The OpenClaw Home Assistant integration lets you control your entire smart home through natural language — text "Turn off all the lights downstairs" to your WhatsApp and OpenClaw makes the API calls to Home Assistant.

This transforms OpenClaw from a productivity tool into a comprehensive home and office automation system. Combined with calendar awareness, time-based scheduling, and sensor data, OpenClaw can create intelligent automations that go far beyond what Home Assistant's built-in automation engine can do alone.

What Can OpenClaw Do with Home Assistant?

Through Home Assistant's REST API, OpenClaw gets access to every device and service in your smart home:

Lighting control: Turn lights on/off, adjust brightness, change colors, and activate scenes. "Set the living room lights to 30% warm white" works naturally.

Climate control: Adjust thermostats, check temperature readings, and set heating/cooling schedules. "What is the temperature in the office?" or "Set the bedroom to 68 degrees for tonight."

Media control: Play music, adjust volume, change sources, and control media players. "Play jazz on the kitchen speaker" if you have Sonos, Chromecast, or other media devices in Home Assistant.

Sensor monitoring: Read data from motion sensors, door/window sensors, humidity sensors, air quality monitors, and energy meters. "Is the garage door open?" or "What is the humidity in the basement?"

Scene activation: Trigger complex multi-device scenes. "Activate movie mode" could dim lights, close blinds, turn on the TV, and set the sound system — all from one command.

How Do You Get a Home Assistant API Token?

Home Assistant uses long-lived access tokens for API authentication.

Step 1: Open your Home Assistant web interface and click on your profile (bottom left).

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom and find "Long-Lived Access Tokens."

Step 3: Click "Create Token," give it a name like "OpenClaw Agent," and copy the token. This token does not expire unless manually revoked.

Step 4: Note your Home Assistant URL. If using Nabu Casa, it will be something like https://your-instance.ui.nabu.casa. If local, it is typically http://homeassistant.local:8123.

How Do You Configure OpenClaw for Home Assistant?

Add Home Assistant credentials to your OpenClaw environment:

export HASS_URL="https://your-instance.ui.nabu.casa"
export HASS_TOKEN="your-long-lived-access-token"

Then add Home Assistant instructions to your OpenClaw system prompt:

# Home Assistant Integration
# Base URL: $HASS_URL/api
# Auth header: Authorization: Bearer $HASS_TOKEN
# List entities: GET /api/states
# Control device: POST /api/services/{domain}/{service} with {"entity_id": "light.living_room"}
# Get state: GET /api/states/{entity_id}
# Common domains: light, switch, climate, media_player, cover, lock, automation

Testing: Ask OpenClaw "List all lights in Home Assistant" to verify the connection. It should return entity IDs and their current states.

What Smart Home Automations Can You Build?

Calendar-aware lighting: OpenClaw checks your calendar. When your first meeting starts, it turns on the office lights and sets them to "focus" mode. When the meeting ends, it adjusts to a relaxed setting.

Morning routine: At your wake-up time, OpenClaw gradually increases bedroom light brightness over 15 minutes, starts the coffee maker (if connected through a smart plug), sets the thermostat to your preferred temperature, and sends you a morning briefing.

Energy management: OpenClaw monitors energy consumption through Home Assistant sensors and sends you daily usage reports. It can suggest optimizations like "Your office light was on for 14 hours yesterday — would you like me to add an auto-off at 7pm?"

Away mode: When you tell OpenClaw you are leaving, it locks doors, adjusts the thermostat, turns off lights, activates security cameras, and simulates presence by cycling lights in the evening.

Weather-responsive: OpenClaw checks weather data and adjusts your home accordingly. If rain is forecast, it closes motorized blinds. If temperature drops below freezing, it bumps the heating up preemptively.

How Do You Secure Smart Home Access?

Restricted tokens: Home Assistant allows creating tokens with limited scope. Create a token that can only access specific device domains, excluding security-sensitive devices like locks and alarms.

Confirmation for critical actions: Configure OpenClaw to always ask for confirmation before locking/unlocking doors, disabling alarms, or opening garage doors. This prevents accidental security changes.

Network security: If Home Assistant is exposed to the internet, use HTTPS (Nabu Casa provides this automatically) and strong authentication. Never expose Home Assistant on HTTP without encryption.

Action logging: Home Assistant logs all API calls. Review these logs periodically to ensure OpenClaw is only performing actions you expect.

FAQ

Does OpenClaw need to be on the same network as Home Assistant?

Not necessarily. If Home Assistant is exposed through Nabu Casa ($6.50/month) or a reverse proxy with HTTPS, OpenClaw can control it from anywhere over the internet. If Home Assistant is local-only, OpenClaw needs to be on the same LAN or connected via VPN.

Can OpenClaw trigger Home Assistant automations?

Yes. OpenClaw can trigger any Home Assistant automation or script through the REST API. You can say "Run the movie mode automation" and OpenClaw calls the appropriate API endpoint. It can also create new automations by editing Home Assistant's YAML configuration files, though this requires more advanced setup.

What Home Assistant devices can OpenClaw control?

OpenClaw can control any device exposed through Home Assistant's API, including lights, switches, thermostats, locks, covers (blinds/shades), media players, cameras, vacuum robots, fans, and sensors. If Home Assistant can see it, OpenClaw can control it.

Is it safe to give an AI agent control over door locks and security?

This requires careful consideration. We recommend excluding security-critical devices (locks, alarms, garage doors) from OpenClaw's access by using a restricted long-lived access token that only has permissions for safe devices. Alternatively, require explicit confirmation for security-sensitive commands — OpenClaw asks you to confirm before unlocking a door.

*Last updated: March 2026. Published by the Remote OpenClaw team at remoteopenclaw.com.*